


my home is under your sternum

by theholychesse



Series: with your hollow skull all white, i kiss your ribs goodnight [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, POV Second Person, au where lily potter is a parselmouth and everything goes downhill from there, even if at the begining he was cuter, i wouldnt trust a puppy with him, or anyone really, severus snape is not a good person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theholychesse/pseuds/theholychesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape loved Lily Potter, and in his heart, he knew she loved him back. </p><p>
  <em>(The one in which Severus Snape makes many mistakes and refuses to fix them.)<em></em></em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	my home is under your sternum

**Author's Note:**

> Snape can understand Parseltongue because he was taught it by Lily. He can't speak it, but like Dumbledore and someone else in canon I can't be bothered to look up, he merely can understands it.

When Lily, little Lily, Lily, your best friend, was sorted into _Gryffindor,_ you felt your heart drop, and make it’s home in your gut. With a smile, she went over to the table that cheered for her, and only when she sat down, did she look worryingly in your direction. You met her eyes, and gave her a sad smile. No matter what, you knew you wouldn’t make it to that house, and nor would your mother approve.

 

So it came as a surprise, when the Sorting Hat dropped on your head, and asked you. ‘ _Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff?_ ’ You were confused. Still are. ‘ _Both fit quite well. You’re loyal as could be, and work hard to make yourself stand out, and you’re brave enough to lie to your father, to stand forth with a girl who you know wields dark magic, brave enough to do the right thing, and make sure another child doesn’t end up in your home by--Hmm..Perhaps not Gryffindor. Your chivalry has much to be desired for.’_ You’re disappointed, and your chest deflates, and the weathered hat coos to you, to soothe your itchy eyes, but you’re partly relieved. You don’t want to think of the sister you could have had.   _‘You’re still a child, you all are, so raw, so innocent. How does anyone expect me to know who you’ll be as an adult? You all change so much, and I’m granted so much power. This isn’t fair, is it?’_ You’re silent. You don’t know what to say. _‘Ah, I’m getting off track, now aren’t I? Forgive the whines of this old man. You’d make a perfect Hufflepuff, wouldn’t you? You may be smart, but you’re not creative--But oh, aren’t you a cunning little creature? You’d have to be, to survive your father. And the **ambition** that swells in you!’_

 

The hat’s been on your head for four minutes, when it screams _SLYTHERIN_ much to the mixed reactions of the school. Lily purses her lips, but you knew in your hearts it would always be this way. The boy with the messy black hair and smug face nods as if he’d known all along. Your fellow Slytherins only clap after 3 seconds have passed, no doubt, remembering your muggle last name.

 

There’s a flicker in the corner of your eye, but as soon as your eyes darted to it, it was gone.

 

You walked over, and a spot, reluctantly, was opened up for you, and you took your place between a bushy haired blonde with a face like an eagle’s, and a bespeckled boy with pale skin, who looked at you oddly. You bit your lip, and in your head,  you chanted that this wouldn’t be your fate until the end of your days, and that you would prove yourself, and one day sit amongst those who turned their noses up at you. You’ll prove yourself their equal.

 

( _You’ll prove yourself their better, for you are already better, they must merely come to terms with it._ )

 

.•.

 

Your class of infantile serpents consists of a certain young Pucey, of those hideous creatures from before, of a small, fierce girl called Angelina, of a pair of Prewett twins, of a Jap called Rin Nakamura, of a girl from the island nations, and of three other sods you can’t be bothered to remember the names of. Everyone else had distinguishing features. Those last four looked exactly the same--Brown hair, brown eyes, female, and tan skin. It was simply impossible to recall their names, even harder that it was with the Prewett twins, and they’re identical in the truest sense.

 

Everyone doesn’t know your name, however. Not yet. Not when you haven’t had your first class of potions, because there, _there_ you know you will excel. You want to beat the record for the highest OWL and NEWT scores set by some muggleborn called Tom Riddle decades ago. It’ll be tough, but you’re sure it’s nothing you can’t handle.

 

When everyone sees you editing the potion recipe, to make it brew quicker, and with a less chance of expelment via the air and into one’s ugly mug, with Slughorn’s eyes shining with an unusual want, everyone knows your name then, and if you have to suffer comments of ‘dork’ and ‘teacher’s pet’, you ignore them, because you earn dozens and dozens of house points, and already plan to publish in the near future, of edited potions, a book about your achievements and your skills, all shown to the world in the neat pages of a printed book.

 

Because you don’t overly care for your fellow snakes, at least, those of your age, those without power, you spend time with Lily. Little Lily, who gushes about all that she’s learnt, about the oddities of the magical world you’ve grown used to, about those no-good bullies who harass her and other students, that is, until she’s chased them away with a brewing storm of ‘accidental’ magic. Lily is the brightest witch of her generation, already, they’re calling her that, so there’s no way her control over her magic isn’t next to iron.

 

You think they’re wrong.

 

Lily is the greatest witch of _all **time**_ , for you’re sure figures like Morgana, like Hatshepsut, like Isabella of Castile, like Amina, like Liliuokalani, like Tzu-hsi, all couldn’t do what Lily could do, with her mind, and her sweet tawny fingers, and her quick, and sharp tongue, that can hiss in the language of the snakes whose legions you have joined. Even though she has made friends here, she hasn’t told any of them what she’s told you, and you’re gleeful at the thought, and it’s what makes your lips curl when some bitch comes and steals Lily away for a game, or a match, or whatever inane nonsense they subject ( _your_ ) darling Lily too, because no matter what, she trusts you, _loves_ you more.

 

That’s one of the thoughts that keeps you going through the years. Thoughts of Lily, and of your future fame and power and wealth. All things your no-good father didn’t have. No, instead of a strong woman, with might all the way from her digits to each and every strand on her head, he had a weepy, weak wretch, and instead of intellectual power, instead of money, he had the power to throw blows, and to drink himself into a stupor, and nothing else. You’re infinitely times the person he has ever been, and you have so many more years ahead of you.

 

( _Vaguely, you feel the sensation of cold, cold in your veins, down to your toes all white, hugging your head and willing your eyes shut and lips to still,  and you’re rocked to blank sleep by the voice of a wizened snake singing tender lullabies._ )

 

.•.

 

James Potter will be one of the first people you intend to ruin, second place only to your father. You are consoled by visions of his perfect face, his straight nose, covered in fat, wet tears, his wild mane of dark hair shorn by scissors held in your hand, and you imagine tilting up his chin, and seeing fear in those black eyes that are somehow of a warmer tone than your own.

 

When you were young, it made your mind elate and go still with rapture, but as you grew older, such thoughts sent a _tingle_ down your spine, and cradled your hips in warmth and pressure. You couldn’t begin to guess why, just like you couldn’t do so with creeping dreams of Lily. Lily wasn’t _supposed_ to do that, she was pure, she was untouchable, to make her do _that_ was a sacrilege to a god, but as you aged, as you befriended a pair of boys with cores so dark it was stifling, and discovered the limits of the world with them, you learned that your dreams, Lily’s voice, Lily’s shaking hands holding silk sheets, her love-filled eyes looking up at you felt _righter_ than so much else in your life, and you grimace at the thought that you ever considered such things _wrong._

 

Even though Barty Crouch Jr. and Regulus Black are unpleasant boys, joking and prodding and curious in ten thousand insufferable ways, they have similar enough interests, similar enough backgrounds, that you are all a knit together group. Knit together enough, that when your lust, your want, for Lily grows, you and Regulus strike a deal. Barty just shook his head at you, far too busy in his infatuation for Miriam Tong to help.

 

If, under you, Regulus called out his brother’s name while you, hilt deep in the boy,  hissed out Lily’s, you didn’t particularly care, nor did you feel surprised by such a thing. Blacks are, after all, renowned for their fondness of fucking each other’s relatives.

 

They were the ones to harden their eyes, and curse all mudbloods when Lily broke up your friendship. For years, you already knew you wouldn’t be able to love her, with her loving you, at least until she saw what kind of great man you would be, but when she threw your past away, and proclaimed you to be a, a, a, _fuck you can’t even say it because it hurts **thinking** about it_ , you knew, knew it wasn’t your fault. Sure. Your tongue may have slipped. But she was the one who overreacted, who went too far, and you’ll wait for her to come to you, begging for forgiveness, because she, she, your _Lily_ was at fault, not you.

 

And when she’ll come back, you’ll make her love you, and together, you will the happiest you ever will be.

 

.•.

 

She didn’t come back. She didn’t come back, and instead, to spite _you_ , she went and started dating Potter, looked with adoration in her eyes at _him_ , and not you, and started being in that Marauders group with the sniffling rat, Pettigrew, and that handsome Black, and that nightmarish beast _Lupin_. God. How did you laugh when you looked up the significance behind his names. It was like he was taunting fate by being born, and eventually, fate caved in.

 

You enjoy sending their own tricks back at them, as you were a prefect, but when Lupin became one as well, and then, for whatever ungodly reason, Potter becomes fucking _Head Boy_ , you lost your advantage, and instead, chose to torment those lesser Gryffindors. They’re all reckless, idiotic fools. They should be punished for merely existing. Everyone else wearing green agrees, and when, in the winter holidays of last year, you’re invited to a death eater recruitment event, you feel your blood heat up, and your wand give a joyful squeal.

 

You graduate, and before you step off the Hogwarts Express, to go live in a apartment in Diagon Alley and work for the Apothecary downstairs while studying for your Mastership of Potions, you give a nod to Lily, and only feel the cold version of rage fill you up when her eyes are full of pity and her hand tightens around Potter’s.

 

He’s full of sadness, and inclines his head to you, and in that moment, you Disapparate. It was never meant to be like that.

 

( _that night, remember, remember, remember, do you remember how your fingers sat on your cheekbones, sharp sharp sharp sharp cheekbones and you wondered what other people see in you that warrants even your worst enemy to look at you with wetness in his gaze_ )

 

You dream of green, of red, and of coiled, scaly sinews, dreamed of pale green upon hearty green of the earth, and the gasps and trembling of the earth beneath as she found utter ecstasy.

 

.•.

 

When summer becomes fall, you’re beckoned into your Lord’s sanctuary. He is a fierce man, with red eyes, white skin, and not a single hair on his body. He’s a hideous monster, with no nose, and the figure of a person straight from a Nazi death camp,  but you’ve finally reached the top. In his hand, he has your NEWTs. Three points above the previous record of Tom Riddle, in potions, at the very least. He seems both impressed, and oddly disgruntled. You aren’t given a chance to think on why before he rises, and you stay kneeled, and he grabs your bare left arm.

 

“Do you believe you are capable?” You nod, shaking, greasy hair covering your eager black eyes. With a snap of his fingers, a man with a hooked nose is brought out. Your Lord thinks this is a trial, but as you rise, and point your wand at the dilapidated creature, and fire a shot of green at your father, you find that you’ve never done anything easier in your life.

 

When your mother, weeping, and broken, comes and tugs on your robes when you go to Spinner’s End the very next day, you say nothing, grabbing everything of value, and leaving her to rot in her spot. She does, and you see the hearse to prove it, a few days after that. Nothing in your heart stirs, and you are content, even if your left arm, in it’s joy, sends dark magic to your veins, burning you up with it’s toxic mirth.

 

.•.

 

You’re not cut out for this. You recognize this, several months later, as the stress placed on you, as chief potioneer of the Death Eaters, keeps on mounting, as nightmares storm your nighttime hours, and you find your fingers shaking more and more without your say-so. It all mounts when you, at the Hog’s Head, overhear a prophecy. You’re tossed out before you hear the rest of it, but you mention it to your Lord nonetheless. You’re subjected to bouts of the Cruciatus, to the Skin Peeling curse, to the Expelment Curse, to the Pressure Curse, for not managing to hear all of it, before your Lord uses your Mark to summon all of the Inner Circle.

 

They think on this for years.

 

And in that time, your mind degrades into a soft mush that can’t even feel regret. Your pale fingers know how to kill, maim, and destroy without conscious thought, and despite whatever face you lay with, despite how many people’s hair you grip, how many lips you smash against, you can’t forget a red haired girl with green eyes and a serpent’s tongue.

 

_(remember. remember. remember how you heard words, orders, gentle things coming out of your lord’s mouth to his itty bitty little scaly baby. remember how you heard him curse and spit. heard him confess shakily that he was afraid, for his soul was shredded and the voices wouldn’t leave him. tasted the terror from across the room, tasted and smelt it on the tip of your tongue, as you spat blood, and saw: paranoia: consume: what once was truly great, but is nothing better that the putrid corpse of your life giver now **=** ~~=~~ **=** ~~=~~ **=** ~~=~~ he is human, no matter what he tries, you all are, from muggle to pureblood (we are all human and the sole difference lies in our **own** eyes) and you laugh at the thought, laugh until you feel blood crawling your throat, and planting eggs in your brain. your heartbeat became your breaths, and your breaths became your heart, and your lungs stuttered and failed to bring you back to life) **(brevity of the soul cannot be mistaken for a salvation of the whole; this kindness unto you i shall not grant for i nor he for you will in rapt devotion chant. forsaken are you, skull white, ribs red, and to mend, nothing will do)**_

 

When your Lord told you to escort him and others to kill the Longbottoms, you complied, and you ran the moment you felt the Mark lessen in agony, lessen in colour, lessen in might. You ran all the way to headquarters, and spearheaded an assault on the Order of the Phoenix’s hut. Of course, you only stayed around until you started to lose, and then, you ran then too.

 

(Do you regret?)( _no. no longer._ )

 

This time, you were caught by a bloodied, teary Bellatrix, and with her wand broken, alongside her spirit, she beat you wandless magic, with her fists, and kicks, and Pettigrew, the rat, joined in too. Just before you passed out, before your world, red and blue and purple, went black, you heard them whispering about attacking the Potters. You were in the middle of a plea before you could move no longer.

 

(Do you shame?)( _no. no longer._ )

 

You woke up in a holding cell, chains around your hands, and feet, and at Wizengamot you blabbed all the names of the Death Eaters you knew, watched Sirius Black, clad in Auror robes, look at you with such a mixture of emotions on his face, of rage, disgust, shame, sadness, pity, ire, fear, _everything_ that it made you sick. In the end, you’re sentenced to only fifteen years of Azkaban, the place where two years is all but a death sentence, for being a confessed Death Eater who helped capture many others down, for the destruction of public property, for using the Unforgivables, and permanent mental disfigurement of Lily and James Potter.

 

Your mind stuttered at that last crime, and you paled, and now you know why Black’s fists were clenched so tight. Something in your expression must have shown, because the guard holding your shoulder leaned in, and told you that part of reason why they were attacked was because Bellatrix did it to spite you, to hurt you, to break you.  

 

Not like you weren’t many years ago.

 

(Do you hate?)( _no. no longer_.)

 

You’re led away to the den of the Dementors with Dumbledore’s eyes twinkling no longer, and with Black’s own wet with tears.

 

(Do you love?)

**Author's Note:**

> That should be the end of the little one-shots. I guess. I might make the whole Harry Potter time stories, but I'll work. Slowly. This whole is. Kinda creepy. And don't kill me for the ending, after all, the whole reason why Snape turned is that he heard that Lily was going to be the target, and here, it was the Longbottoms so. No reason to. He can't get out scot-free. He's actually gotta accept responsibility. In the world's most hellish torture-prison, but eh, can't be perfect.
> 
> Really, I only wrote this so I can have a scene where Snape can listen in to Voldemort talk in Parseltongue and mentally scoff at how he excessively prolongs the 's'. Unfortunately the direction of this meant I wouldn't be able to do that. Sigh.


End file.
